Stretch & The Truth, a collective of legendary players from Southern Australia smash and musically cook their way through songs born in the bush and brewed in the city. Stephen ‘Stretch’ Teakle, the creative mind behind Barry Morgan’s World Of Organs, draws inspiration from the Dead South, Lucas Nelson and the likes of Paul Kelly, Neil Murray and James Reyne all of whom he has worked with in the past.
Stephen has had many lived experiences, from formal musical training to time spent in indigenous communities, absorbing the desert rock reggae he describes as ‘cleansing’. The project has been many years in the making, which began when long-time friend Deborah Conway encouraged Stretch to combine his storytelling and musical talents.
As witnessed by Conway having Teakle play in her touring band , Stretch is a master of taking stories of life on the land to the city folk and likewise from the city to the bush, ‘where no one’s there to check your story’, so it becomes ‘stretched’ with the value of artistic license and Aussie larrikinism.
With irresistibly catchy riffs and choruses combined with poetic storytelling, these songs are melodic gems – or perhaps rough diamonds, with just the right amount of polish to draw you in and have you dreaming of road trip getaways!
The songs have been aged, tinkered with and kept lovingly, waiting for the right time. Stretch says of the project: “thinking about what matters most to me, maybe I should have stayed in my dad’s shed, working on a band! The feeling of playing with mates, the rhythm section behind me, well it’s like being Buster Keaton on the front of the train, but I’ve got a microphone, and I’m shoutin’ for more”.
Anyone who goes to a Stretch & The Truth show, leaves with a permission slip to go out into the world and stretch their own truth!